Congress surrendered its most powerful check over the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month when it added $70 billion for immigration enforcement to the agency’s already massive budget. The money will allow the department to continue the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy that has included locking up immigrants who pose no public safety threat, as well as mass surveillance of both immigrants and citizens. The policies getting this unprecedented level of funding have also led to dozens of deaths during enforcement actions by Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as in detention.
But Congress can act to regain its power. Earlier this year, Democratic legislators successfully blocked more funding for DHS, demanding reforms to ICE and CBP in the wake of the killing of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. That dispute led to the longest government shutdown in history and ended with a bill that funded only the non-immigration parts of DHS.
Now, Republican leaders have skirted the budget process by using a procedural tool called reconciliation. The move allowed the bill to pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster during budget negotiations. The $70 billion that the budget granted is more than the budgets for all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
The 2026 reconciliation bill, dubbed the Secure America Act, gives DHS until September 2029 to spend the money. Over half the new funds will go to ICE, which will receive nearly $39 billion for a wide range of enforcement operations, including additional hiring, facilities, and arrests. For comparison, 70 percent of the world’s countries have an annual budget of less than $39 billion.
The funding also supports further expansions of controversial 287(g) agreements — named for the section of the law that authorizes them — that enlist local police to help ICE with immigration enforcement. And it bars ICE from using the money for programs that would reduce the number of immigrants in detention, such as parole, check-in apps, or ankle monitors.
ICE isn’t the only part of DHS that received a massive funding boost. Congress also gave CBP $26 billion to hire more personnel and conduct immigration enforcement, as well as to expand air, sea, and border surveillance. But many of CBP’s activities have raised concerns. Legislators questioned CBP’s harsh tactics at the border. CBP official Greg Bovino led officers in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis with force that “shocks the conscience,” according to one federal judge. CBP officers killed Pretti, and the details about any federal investigation remain murky, with federal officials refusing to share information with state officials. For its part, Congress made it harder to hold the agency accountable by giving up the authority to condition future funding on reforms.
The Secure America Act also includes an additional $5 billion for the secretary of homeland security. Half of that money does not have any constraints, giving the secretary unusually unfettered discretion over what is essentially a $2.5 billion slush fund. The other half will go to support the secretary’s further exercise of his general authorities. It remains unclear what all the secretary will do with the money, but those authorities include vague terms such as “controlling records.” Such records could include a wide range of information held about noncitizens and Americans, including data that some states use to check voter eligibility. The secretary also has the power to authorize state and local law enforcement to support DHS duties if he determines there is “an actual or imminent mass influx” of immigrants.
These new funds aren’t necessary. In the July 2025 reconciliation bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress gave DHS $170 billion. Much of that money has not been spent. According to the most recent data, ICE and CBP had a combined $118 billion unspent in April 2026. With the additional $65 billion for ICE and CBP in the Secure America Act, the agencies now have $183 billion available.
Congress isn’t stopping there. The House Appropriations Committee just approved an additional $28 billion for ICE and CBP for fiscal year 2027, which starts this fall. That would push available funds over $200 billion.
Even if ICE and CBP evenly spread the reconciliation funds in the Secure America Act and the July 2025 reconciliation through their expiration in September 2029, the combined budgets of ICE and CBP will have more than tripled since 2021.
The upshot for the administration is that it can turbocharge its immigration crackdown for the remainder of President Trump’s term. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that the department will be “more quiet” but that the department isn’t backing down from its mass deportation push. White House “border czar” Tom Homan summed it up more bluntly: “You ain’t seen s*** yet.”
ICE has already greatly expanded detention capacity through private contracts and increased investment in detention facilities. Barring ICE from using funds for cheaper and more humane alternatives to detention means even more people — including children and families — will be locked up. At least 50 people have died in immigration detention since Trump returned to office, the deadliest period in ICE’s history.
The funding will also allow DHS to continue to build surveillance capabilities that facilitate indiscriminate collection of information about Americans as well as immigrants. The agency has spent more than $2 billion on technologies to track dissenters as well as immigrants, including social media monitoring systems, cellphone location tracking, facial recognition, and remote hacking tools.
